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It's a truism that the rise of the Internet means cheap and easy business resources means startups can challenge established players, David can beat Goliath and new ideas can proliferate. But the reality still isn'the that easy.

"You have to have a great product," Neil Parikh, cofounder of online mattress company Casper, explained during the 2016 FORBES Under 30 Summit in Boston. "If you don't, it doesn't matter what veneer you're going to put on something, you're not going to be able to scale it."

Andy Katz-Mayfield, cofounder of shaving company Harry's, corroborated that advice, and put his money behind it: "I ended up overpaying for overpriced and overdesigned razors," he said. So in 2014 he spent $100 million on a German factory to make his own razors. As for the choice to sell them over the internet rather than in stores, he simply said, "Sharing shelf space with Procter & Gamble would have been a losing value proposition." Before Harry's could share shelf space, it had to make a name for itself on its own.

"We had to focus on brand from the very beginning," Rent the Runway cofounder Jennifer Hyman noted during the discussion. "Could we convince women that wearing dirty clothes that other women had worn before was actually not disgusting? Could we ever get you to say, 'Oh, thanks, I rented the runway?'" (Rent the Runway took a big step toward solving one of those problems by becoming the nation's largest dry cleaner, with a 160,000-square-foot facility.)

Rather than focus on their competitors (as Hyman said, "We pretend that we have competitors"), the three companies chalk up their success to an intense focus on their products themselves. A great product brings in loyal customers, and loyal customers tend to multiply. Really, the internet is just a nice bonus tool.

In fact, all three e-commerce companies recently moved into storefront space, flipping on its head the way business has been done until quite recently. Harry's has a flagship in Manhattan that, on top of selling razors, offers haricuts and shaves by top-notch barbers. Katz-Mayfield says the location is less about selling razors and more about customer satisfaction--but, not to be left behind by the Procter & Gambles of the world, the brand also moved into Target stores this past August.

Casper, too, is selling more of its products in person. On top of its two mattress showrooms, Casper has its products in more than 70 West Elm stores. Parikh is still a little defensive of the move: "You have a stronger connection with your customer," he said. "You get to have more fun. It's still a very efficient way of doing things."

Rent the Runway, too, has brick-and-mortar stores: two in New York City and one each in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Las Vegas, with a Los Angeles shop opening on Friday. Shopping for clothes in person is helpful for the customer, Hyman said--but it also helps her brand. "A woman who goes into our store in LA tries on two pieces of clothing," she explained. "We now know how each article of clothing that fit her." That, in turn, can be fed into the algorithms that power the site and recommend clothing for women who with the same measurements as that single in-person customer. Talk about efficient.

I produce the Pharma and Healthcare channel here. Before landing at Forbes, I earned a B.A. in anthropology at Princeton. I've also spent time at The Daily Beast, Gawker,…

I produce the Pharma and Healthcare channel here. Before landing at Forbes, I earned a B.A. in anthropology at Princeton. I've also spent time at The Daily Beast, Gawker, and Bustle. Follow me on Twitter @smhedgecock.